Lecture 5: Faith & Reason

Christian Humanism and the Protestant Reformation

Faith vs Reason

Who is the ultimate religious authority?

What is the relationship between religious and secular authority?

What is the power of man’s conscience?

Can conceive of religion as a cultural system: Expressed by symbols that evoke powerful emotion Insistence on order of existence and claim to direct

knowledge of truth Community practice and personal faith

Faith – to believe without reason or proof Religious practice and faith are expected to go hand

in hand Sense of transcendence Institutional organization

What is Religion?

The Old Church,A (Very) Brief History

The Old Church = Roman Catholic Church Beginnings:

Split from Judaism Jesus Christ as Son of God The Confession of St. Peter = beginning of papacy

312 – 385 = standardization and institutionalization under Constantine Constantine’s victory attributed to Christian God Council of Nicaea = consubstantiality of Trinity

11th Century East-West Schism and Investiture Controversy

Investiture Controversy (11th Century)

Papal Schism (1378-1414) Avignon Papacy (1309-

1377) Two Popes: French and

Roman

Council of Constance (1414-1417) settles the issue Instituted a council of

Cardinals that governed the pope

Can a council be in charge of God’s vicar on earth?

Temporal Power vs. Spiritual Authority

Sacraments organize the life cycleEmphasis on symbols and ritualsServices in LatinEucharist: cracker and wine ARE the

blood and body of ChristTransubstantiation: Process through

which cracker and wine become the blood and body of Christ

Renaissance Catholic Church

Catholic Church Hierarchy

Priests and Monks

Bishops/Abbots

Archbishop

Cardinals

Pope

Eschatology=branch of theology that considers the future and all future events

Positions past, present, and future within a larger scheme that incorporates the Fall of Man through Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory

Eschatology

1. PracticesChurch excessesOne response =

begging orders

2. GovernmentTemporal vs.

spiritual authority

3. Doctrine

Major Controversies of the Catholic Church

Christian Humanism Renaissance Humanism

Revival of classical learning Educational reform –

emphasis on creating the best human being (virtue and civic engagement)

Christian Humanism Increased faith in the

capability of man + firm belief in Christian God. Ex. Pico’s “Oration”

Utilization of classical learning to enrich biblical understanding

Desiderius Erasmus

“the Prince of the Humanists”

1460s? – born in Holland

1492 – becomes Augustinian monk

1495 – studies at University of Paris

1499 – visits England

1512 – begins work to produce new Greek and Latin versions of the bible

1515 – “The Sileni of Alcibiades”

The Sileni of Alcibiades Plato’s Symposium – the greatest and

highest form of love is not love of the material but of the abstract and ideal

Alcibiades – most handsome man in Greece; in love with Socrates, the ugliest man

Socrates = silenus (a box which is carved with ugly face of Silenus on the outside but holds a beautiful object within) “But if you open up this Silenus, who is

outwardly so ridiculous, you find wihtin somoene who is closer to beign a god than man…” (170)

Lessons of the Silenus Reality vs Appearance (171) Superficial vs Essential (174) Christ as ultimate silenus (171) vs

majority who are Sileni turned inside out (173) “upside-down values” (178) and

instability of language Who constitutes the Church? (179) Material vs Spiritual (185) Secular vs Religious (188)

“How can he lead us towards the kingdom of heaven… when he is entirely preoccupied with the kingdom of this world?” (187-188)

Martin Luther Nov 10, 1483 – born in Holy Roman Empire 1505 – decided to take Augustinian orders 1508 – begins teaching @ Wittenberg 1516 – Tetzel arrives in Germany 1518 – the 95 Theses are circulated 1521 – Luther excommunicated, declared

an outlaw of the Holy Roman Empire 1522 – produces German translation of

Bible using Erasmus’s Latin version 1523 – Luther marries ex-nun Katharina

von Bora 1528 – begins actively organizing the new

church

The 95 Theses Indulgences:

Technically – the full or partial remission of temporal punishment after a sinner has confessed and received absolution

Tetzel - "As soon as a coin in the coffer rings, a soul from purgatory springs”

Theses 13, 20-22 = limits of pope’s power Theses 61-66 = Luther’s own ideas of the silenus Theses 82, 86, 90 = papal hypocrisy

Appeal to German Nobility

Reformation of Catholic Church is only possible through secular intervention

3 walls keep church corrupt: 1. spiritual is superior to

secular 2. only church can interpret

scripture 3. only pope can call a

council Purposely referencing walls

of Jericho

Destroying the 3 Walls Wall 1: Spiritual vs Secular

All Christians are equally Christian; all Christians are priests (408)

Necessary balance of power (410) Wall 2: Power of interpretation

No scriptural proof St Peter = power to forgive sin not to decide doctrine Equality of Christians

Wall 3: Power to call councils No scriptural proof Constantine, not a pope, called the most important council Respect for authority cannot lead to destruction (416)

Erasmus vs Luther

Erasmus & Luther: Corruption of religious authority because of overly secular

concerns Erasmus:

Ultimate belief in Church as institution capable of self-reform Primarily values peace and resolution of conflict Insistence on free will the justice of God

Luther: Cynical of man’s ability for self-reform Primarily values adherence and subordination to the divine Insistence on bondage of the will the omnipotence of God

Free Will?Erasmus Luther• Assertions are unhelpful

because they just result in strife• There are some scriptural issues

that are incomprehensible• If we will never understand, then

why fight about it? Just focus on Christian goodness

• Disputing irresolvable issues does more harm than good

• “Who will be able to bring himself to love God with all his heart when He created hell seething with eternal torments in order to punish his own misdeeds in his victims as though he took delight in human torments?” (66:41)

• To be Christian is to make assertions!

• Scripture is not incomprehensible; God’s judgment is. The Spirit inspires understanding. (73: 175)

• We must know the extent of our own power in order to know the extent of God’s power (75: 179)

• If God is immutable, then there must NOT be free will (76: 181)

• Disregarding the questions of free will and God’s foreknowledge is ignoring the questions of salvation (78: 184)

• Answer to E’s final point = exposition on predestination (79-87)

Bondage of the Will Our will is not even free – we can never freely choose to be

perfectly good so as to deserve heaven (79: 187) Only God’s will is free – could freely choose to do evil or

good but because he’s God, he always does good (80: 180) Scripture is revealed to us but NOT God’s will

Scripture makes it clear that God’s will is ultimate but it does not explain the logic of God’s will (81: 191)

As humans, we can therefore never fully understand the ultimate wisdom of God’s will. Ex. Pharaoh (83)

Predestination is better cause on the merit of our own free wills, we would never get to heaven (85: 199)

1. Sola Scriptura—sole authority of Scripture

2. Sola fide—the doctrine of salvation by “faith alone”

3. Priesthood of all believers

4. Reform of practice—more sermon, less ritual

5. Rulers use their powers to promote the true Christian confession (the Reformed or Old Church)

Five Basic Ideas of the Reformation

Counter-Reformation Papal Bull of 1514

Strengthens bishops’ authority Limits unauthorized preaching

Council of Trent (1537-1563) Institutionalizes practices from above Establishes schools for priests

Inquisition First developed against Muslims in 1490s Expulsion of all Jews and Muslims from Spain

Confessionalization: reassertion of commitment to religious principles and doctrines

Criminalization of Protestant dissenters Jesuit missions Crack-down on absentee bishops Reinstitution of vows from abbots to bishops and

bishops to pope

Consequences of Reformation

From unity to multiplicity Alliances based on religion

Spain and Italy England and Germany/Holland

Catholic church revamped itself Nation-state becomes primary form of

community identity Ex: Kingdom of God versus nations of men

Montaigne’s Essays “To the Reader” – p4 “On educating children” – p37-73 “That it is madness to judge” – p74-78 “On the cannibals” – p79-92 “On coaches” – p330-350 “On the lame” – p351-363

For Montaigne, what is the whole purpose of education, and what knowledge is truly worth pursuing? How should we even pursue knowledge?

What knowledge does the new world have to offer the old? And why is it significant?